Little Red Cinderella and the Three Beanstalks

Previously...

"Well, that didn't last long." He remarked coolly.

"What didn't last long?" I demanded, narrowing my eyes at him.

"Your sudden burst of leadership. You have been taking charge for the last couple of chapters, and for once, I didn't have to come up with every brilliant plan. But you know what they say, all good things must come to an end."

"If I could just get my hands around your throat-"

"Okay then!" Jack called over my threats. "Did you have any particular plan in mind, Ezu?"

"As a matter of fact, I did." He replied stoically, sticking his tongue out at me as he did so.

"Oh do enlighten us lesser folks Good Sir Ezu, what exactly is this brilliant plan of yours?" I said, my tone dripping with sarcasm. In response, he gave a rather wicked grin.

"Huddle up. This is gonna be good."

************************************************************************

It was the middle of the night.

Right before about 11 o'clock, as a matter of fact.

I was sitting in a graveyard.

Surrounded by pumpkins. And gravestones. And beneath my feet, rotting corpses too, I suppose.

And I was crying.

Well, pretending to, anyways.

"You're not doing it right!" Ezu hissed from his hiding place behind a particularly large tombstone, complete with elaborately engraved face full of malady and woe.

"What do you mean, 'not doing it right'?" I whispered back angrily, peering at him through my fingers.

"It isn't convincing at all!" Ezu whispered. "I can totally tell you're faking!"

"You know what," I hissed heatedly, giving up any pretext of pretending to sob, "I'll come over there myself and make you cry for reals if you don't stop criticizing my tears!"

"But that's the problem!" Ezu whispered, his eyes wide as if it were obvious. "There aren't any tears at all!"

"This is a stupid plan!" I snapped, not bothering to whisper as I stood up and started brushing the dirt from my pants.

"Are you kidding?" Ezu said, dropping his own whisper as well and straightening up to frown at me. "It's a great plan, you just fail at executing it!"

"Because it's a stupid plan, that's why!" I shot back defensively.

"Hey, hey, you two," Jack cut in, popping out from behind a gnarled yew tree. "We're running out of time, and fighting isn't going to get us anywhere."

"Do you have any idea how much I hate it when you do that?" Ezu asked Jack, his eyes narrowed at the taller boy.

"Do what?"

"Interrupt our fights," I replied, rolling up one of my sleeves and making a fist. "You always cut me off before I get a chance to deck him-"

"I am afraid young Master Jack is right, friends," Alfred added, suddenly melting out of the shadows like a ghosts. "The Lady is relying on us to save her, and time is running short. You may, as you said, deck Master Ezu after we've rescued Miss Cinderella."

"Well, that's all fine and dandy," I frowned, crossing my arms over my chest, "But it doesn't change the fact that I still can't cry on command. Can't one of you do it?"

"It won't work if one of us do it!" Ezu explained, exasperated.

"Why not?" I pouted.

"Because, we're men!" He said, as if that explained everything.

"I fail to see why that matters," I stated plainly, my lips pursed.

"Have you ever heard of a man having a fairy godmother?" Ezu asked, eyebrows raised matter-of-factly.

"...I think we still have those costumes from before somewhere-"

"No!" Both Jack and Ezu shouted at the same time.

"Look, Rikki," Ezu said after a moment, having composed himself. "It isn't that hard. Just think of something sad."

"Like?" I replied shortly.

"Like dead puppies," Ezu suggested.

"Or what will happen if we don't save all the princesses," Jack added, darkly.

"Or the unfair living conditions forced upon wolves everywhere due to rampant species-ism and perpetuated false stereotypes that make equality for Wolves nigh impossible." said Alfred helpfully.

I groaned. "You're all tremendously helpful," I said, sarcastically. "Okay, okay. Let me have another go." I gave in, deflating a little.

"That's the spirit!" Ezu grinned at me. "And remember, the fate of the entire world and the lives of thousands of innocent hangs in the balance of how many tears you can shed!"

"Just go already!"

I sat back down in the dirt, cross legged and morose, my chin resting in my hands. Cry. I just had to cry, and make it convincing. I had the easiest job. I was the bait; Jack, Ezu, and Alfred had to do all the heavy lifting. Ezu was right, I couldn't fail.
Okay. Unhappy thoughts.
I closed my eyes, and let my mind wander.

The end of the world.
Well, this world, anyways.
I'd ruin every fairy tale forever.
I'd probably die, in fact, if I couldn't defeat the witch or whatever it was I was supposed to do.
Jack and Ezu would die, too. And Alfred. And everyone else I'd met on this crazy journey.
If I died, I'd never get to go back home.
Home. My family was at home.
Back in my world.
What were they doing?
Did they miss me?
What was mom doing? What was Rick doing?
What about the police? Were they looking for me? My friends?
What if I died and never was them again?
What if they died?
What if I never got back home? Would I ever get back? Even if we DID manage to save the world from the witch?
Would I ever see my family again?
...Did I want to?
What if I did get to go back home?
What would that mean for Jack and Ezu?
Would I ever see them again?
Would I have to choose? Between my family, and my friends?
...What would I choose?
Ezu. Would I choose Ezu? What if I had to live with him forever?
Would it be worth it? Would I rather spend the rest of my life with Ezu than with my own family?
Could I imagine never seeing my parents or brother again?
Yes, all too easily.
Could I imagine never seeing Ezu again?
...
Could I imagine being with Ezu for the rest of my life?
Growing up beside him?
Living with him, since I had nowhere else to go?
Could I see myself at Ezu's side after all of this was over?
Could I see myself beside him, with him, could I see myself in his arms, as his--

I felt like a brick was smashed against my brain, suddenly derailing my train of thought.
I reeled, my eyes forced open, and I blinked in the milky white moonlight, my face burning with embarrassment.
What the hell had that been? Did I seriously just...? Was I really imagining...?
Quickly I glanced around, my face still red as a tomato, looking to see if anyone had noticed, if anyone had read my guilty thoughts on my face.
I couldn't see Ezu, Jack, or Alfred at all. Hopefully, they couldn't see me either.
I buried my face in my hands, wishing the redness would go away. I was about to cry, alright--cry with mortification. Until this moment, I had kept all those thoughts safely buried in the back of my mind. I'd ignored them, I'd beaten them down. Ezu was coarse, rough, obnoxious, rude, crude, and tactless. The exact opposite of everything the perfect guy should be.
Stockholm syndrome! That was it. I'd just been stuck with him for so long, he'd becomes my only choice.
Besides, the idea that he would ever return those affections was preposterous.
God. What was I going to do? I was... I was... crushing? Ew, no. I wasn't 13, for god's sake. Infatuated with? No no, that was even worse! In love with?
I mentally smacked myself. That one was ridiculous. Not even feasible. I couldn't even joke about that.
No, I was confused. All of this running around and getting kidnapped and saving the world had be strung out and I thinking crazy things that had no basis in reality. I just over stressed, that was it.
The words "me" and "Ezu" didn't belong in the same sentence, unless they were followed by "don't get along".
There was no us.
There never would be an us.
I was going to finish my job here, and then I was going to go back home to Minnesota, back to my old life, back to my family and my school and the world I was trapped in before I got trapped in this one, and Ezu would get on with his own life and grow up and get married and have a family without me, and that was that.

The first tear landed in the dirt by my feet.
By the time the second one fell, the air before me was already sparkling with an unearthly glow.
As the third cut a path down my dirty face I looked up to see a rather stout, roundish woman materialized through the glittering air, complete with fluttering wings and a little gold wand.
She smiled sweetly at me, and opened her mouth to speak...

...And then Ezu, Jack, and Alfred leaped out of their hiding places with barbaric yells and tackled her to the ground.

The struggle was over in less than a minute. Alfred had wrestled the wand from her grasp, and Ezu and Jack had trussed her up like an unfortunate cow at a roping contest.
Her hands and feet bound, they propped her up against a headstone, and all four of us gathered around her.

"What in heaven's name is going on here?!" She shrieked, her grey hair, once so neatly piled atop her hair in a little bun, now falling loosely about her very red face. "Who are you? What are you doing to me? Where's my wand? I'll report you to the council, I swear I will! Let me go this instant!"

"Ma'am," I said, crouching down so I was on her level and trying to speak over her shouts, "Ma'am, we're very, very sorry about all this, but-"

"I swear, if you don't release me right now, you'll all be sorry! You won't get away with this! Help! Help!"

"Ma'am, Miss Fairy Godmother, really we're sorry we had to do this, but-"

"Somebody! Please! I'm being Fairy-Napped! Help!"

"Rikki, let me," Alfred said, pushing me gently aside. He bent down, and unleashed an almighty howl, his gaping jaws mere inches from the fairy's face.
She shut up real quick after that.

"Thank you, Alfred." I sighed, and sat back down beside the woman. "Now please, ma'am, hear us out. We're really very sorry we had to... accost you like this, but you see, it's an emergency." I tried to explained.

The fairy glanced at Alfred, then at Jack, Ezu, and my faces, trembling slightly. "Well, it had better be a damn good emergency then." She squeaked.

"Oh, it is!" I said quickly, launching into the explanation before she decided to start screaming again. "You see, this girl, Cinderella, well, she was supposed to go to the Prince's ball tonight so they could fall in love and live happily ever after, but her wicked step-mother caught her, and accidental turned her into a pumpkin, and now we have to save Cinderella and turn her back so that she can meet the prince before midnight, or else the evil witch that is locked up in some tower will break loose and take over the world!... Or, or something along those lines, anyways." I finished, rather lamely.

The Fairy Godmother stared at me, her mouth slightly agape.
"...Is this some sort of a joke? Did someone from the Agency put you up to this? Was it Jill? Is Jill behind this?" She asked after a long moment of silence.

"Erm, no ma'am. I'm afraid this isn't a joke." I said, my heart sinking. It didn't look as though this was going to work after all.

"Look, Missus Fairy God Mother or whatever," Ezu growled, crouching down beside me to glare stonily at the little plump woman bound before us. "This is no joke, and time is of the essence. So we would very much appreciate it if you would just bippity-boppity-boo Cinderella back to her old self again, and then we can untie you, and the world won't be destroyed, and everyone wins. Got that?"

The Fairy blinked at him in shock, her little pink mouth slightly agape. Then she drew herself up (as much as she could, which wasn't much), snapped her mouth closed into a tight, thin line, and narrowed her eyes at him. "Well, my dear, I'm afraid I can't do that." She replied coldly, her chin held high.

"Why not?" Ezu demanded. I elbowed him in the ribs. Being rude to your kidnapped victims is just bad etiquette.

"My magic just doesn't work like that!" The fairy snapped, as if it were obvious. Before Ezu could open his mouth again, I cut in.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"I can't just use my magic for anything I want, you see. If I could, do you really think I'd be working as a Fairy God Parent? The Benefits are terrible! No over time pay, no sick leave, no paid vacations! We don't even have a company health insurance policy! And I can't use my magic for myself. No, I can't use my magic for anyone except the girl who summoned me." The little fairy finished her rant rather pink in the face. I shared a worried glance with Ezu. With every word, my heart had sank a little lower. It was beginning to look like all of our questionably moral activities were all for naught.

"Well, since I'm the one asking you to transform her back, aren't you still using my magic for me?" I asked, desperately hoping for a loophole.

"No!" The fairy spat, then paused, looking slightly uncertain. "Well, I don't think so... Maybe? I'm not entirely sure the handbook covers this sort of situation... where is the girl, anywhos? Which pumpkin is she exactly?"

"Erm..." Another glance at Ezu, who reflected my blank look right back at me. "We don't exactly know," I admitted, quietly.

"...You don't know?" The fairy looked from each of us incredulously.

"Well, she's here... somewhere!" I defended quickly, without any real conviction. "One of these pumpkins is her, at any rate."

"...There are about a hundred pumpkins here." The fairy said, flatly.

"Well that's not my fault, is it?!" I snapped heatedly.

"Goodness gracious." The woman closed her eyes and shook her gray-haired head, as if she couldn't fathom what the world was coming to these days. "How in the world did this happen anyways?"

"I told you, her step mother accidental did it." I replied, still annoyed.

"Her step mother?" The fairy repeated, looking up at me suddenly.

"Yeah," I said, looking curiously back at her. She was staring at me intently, her lips pursed. I could practically see the cogs working in her brain as she thought."

"...Well," She said after a moment, "There may not be anything I can do, but I think I might have an idea... that is, if you untie me first."